Diablo 3 is approaching its one-year anniversary and the developers working on the Blizzard title are still keen to change player behaviors by trying to lessen their reliance on the Auction House.

Andrew Chambers, the senior game designer working on the game, states in a forum-based Ask a Developer session that, “We don’t really like that, for most players, all of your current gear is very likely to be something you’ve found on the Auction House. This can create a situation where it doesn’t feel like you “own” the gear you’ve obtained; instead, it feels like you are renting it.”

Update 1.0.7 is set to change some of the core elements of Diablo 3 in order to encourage players to have a close connection with their equipment and feel pride in the items they create.

Now crafted items are account-bound as is Demonic Essence, with the developers going into more detail about the reasons in the forum thread.

Travis Day, a designer working on Diablo 3, adds, ”We want players to not only find or produce their own items more often but also diminish the impact the Auction House has on the game, and we felt like this was a good opportunity to take our first steps in that direction.”

Patch 1.0.7 for the Blizzard action game includes a number of other changes, some of them based on feedback from the community, and is now live on all game servers.

Blizzard was faced with a lot of criticism from the community after launching Diablo 3 and the team has worked hard to change the game mechanics in order to make them more attractive.

Players are still complaining about a number of problems, including character powers and game balance, and Blizzard seems to already have a number of ideas for future patches.